Abolition of PHE

Prior to COVID-19, when Johnson took over the Conservative Party last year, a swathe of special advisors was put into Downing Street and all key ministries, many coming from the Tufton Street cluster of neoliberal think tanks. The pandemic has been a golden opportunity to accelerate the final stages of the neoliberal transition.

Thus, the intention is to merge the NHS with social care, with the latter already substantially in private hands, and to transform the planning system to further deregulate and thereby enable developers to extend their power, even though the big four housebuilders already have an available land bank of around half a million undeveloped plots.

The most recent initiative is to combine test and trace with elements of Public Health England. The former is already largely contracted out to private companies and the latter has been starved of funds over the past decade. Doing this right in the middle of one of the biggest public health crises in a century does take some nerve, but neoliberal self-belief in Johnson’s circles, if not in Johnson himself, remains at an all-time high. Indeed, throughout the pandemic the opportunity has been taken to contract out as much as possible, frequently avoiding competitive tender.

www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/coronavirus-could-dethrone-the-neoliberalism-thats-made-the-uk-a-basket-case/

Dido Harding is married to a Tory MP who wants to privatise the NHS. That’s Cummings plan too, underfund, undermine, hive off bits to the private sector, what’s the betting within a year we are discussing the new private health insurance scheme.

You should watch this film about NHS privatisation by John Pilger It says it all really.

Splendid quote from John Major about the NHS :
"the NHS is about as safe with them (Johnson, Gove etc)
as a pet hamster would be with a hungry python"
No matter what you think of him you must admit he is spot on with this .

The Dirty War on the NHS was first broadcast in Britain on the ITV Network on 17 December, 2019. It was shown following the general election that saw Boris Johnson become prime minister — even though the future of the NHS was a major issue in the campaign.

The remarkable prescience of the film became clear when the COVID pandemic struck, and the NHS, crippled by bed shortages, the starvation of resources and accelerating privatisation, could not cope. This was the film's warning - a warning also delivered in 2016 when a full 'drill' for a pandemic showed the NHS would barely survive such an emergency. The politicians and managers did nothing; the report of the results of the drill was suppressed.

The ideological assault on the world's first public health service continued at the height of the COVID crisis with inept private firms given lucrative contracts for PPE and mass testing. The Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, an arch privatiser, announced in August 2020 that in future most GP consultations would be be online. Hancock's association with the tech company, Babylon Health, is dealt with in The Dirty War.

johnpilger.com/articles/how-britain-could-have-defeated-covid-the-dirty-war-on-the-nhs-now-available-to-watch-here-free-of-charge

allium

Another shambles with loads of money being syphoned off on the side.

The thing is, the tories have discovered Modern Monetary Theory. This describes how money is issued by a government. It is actually a true account of how money gets into the economy.

But...

The thing about it is, though, that the money the government creates doesn't have to be invested in anything for the 'public good'. (that's just what loonie lefties believe should happen) Where it goes is entirely the choice of the government. They have chosen to direct it to their friends and relations (no doubt with something there in it for them) so that it can be leached out of the country.

Having distributed £billions this way, they will then tell the populace that the nation owes £squillions and it has to be repaid by massive cuts in public spending and higher taxes for everyone (apart from the really rich). It's a clever con trick, isn't it?

Another shambles with loads of money being syphoned off on the side.

I smell a rat!

I smell a great, open, stinking sewer!

Isn't SERCO involved in all this somewhere. Despite being dreadful at running the centralised test, track & trace operation?

How is this going to link in with local authorities' being given more responsibility for test and trace?

I smell a rat!

I trust Dido Harding to run this new organisation as much as I'd have trusted Dr Harold Shipman to look after my granny.

Dido Harding was CEO of Talk Talk when the company was hacked and the data of thousands of their customers was stolen.

She has absolutely no Public Health experience and her record has destroyed any argument that could have been made for having an effective 'administrator' in charge.

I more and more think that the 'government' has absolutely no interest at all in 'governing'. Their prime objective seems to be to allow themselves and their cronies to to extract for themselves much public money as they possibly can. Do we similarities here with their dear friends, the Russian oligarchs?

Nobody with a grain of sense would completely reorganise the body responsible for public health systems in the middle of a global pandemic.

This isn't even incompetence, it's deliberate destruction and devastation.

I think this German institute is the Koch Institute founded in
1891 and headed by an eminent scientist.
It has therefore been there for a while, so why didnt Hancock look at it before ?

I do not think Dido Harding should be in charge of it . The test and trace has not worked ( in fact some local councils have performed better with their methods ) Surely the post should have been advertised , not handed over, especially to someone whose husband back privatisation of the NHS.

It's again not what you know, but who you know.

This government continues to show just how inept , useless and lacking in morality it is.

Abolition may be a great idea, but common sense tells anyone that this is not the time to do it. Hancock said this morning that Germany had a better system. That may be, but they haven't just created their system on the hoof, under intense pressure to work at full capacity immediately. Good grief!

The private companies running test and trace have failed. Our own local Public Health departments could do a much better job.

weownit.org.uk/act-now/council-leaders-email-matt-hancock-behalf-us

pay rise for the hospital workers is the first thing to do ...

It seems to be about who you know. Her efforts at Test and Trace are very far from "world beating". Poor performance is no barrier, in fact it seems to be a requirement.

inews.co.uk/news/baroness-dido-harding-appointed-interim-chief-nihp-582711

For looking as though she cares, Blinko.

And how does Dido Harding get all these plum appointments?